Russian police have included Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania’s Culture Minister and members of Latvia’s former parliament on a highly sought-after list.
They are threatened with arrest if they cross the Russian border.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kallas was wanted for “desecration of ancient memory. “
The Baltic officials have been charged with “destroying monuments dedicated to Soviet soldiers,” which would net them a five-year sentence, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have demolished most of their Soviet-era monuments after Russia invaded Ukraine just two years ago.
Kallas said the move would not replace his statement on Ukraine.
“The Kremlin now hopes that this resolution will help silence me and others, but it probably won’t,” he said in a message on social media platform X.
“I will stand firm for Ukraine. I will continue to advocate for the strengthening of Europe’s defense. “
Turkey’s counterterrorism police investigating the Islamic State have arrested a Russian national who was running through the construction of a nuclear plant, security officials said.
The suspect ran under a false identity at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, on Turkey’s southern coast.
The plant is being built by Russian conglomerate Rosatom.
Local police said a foreign national had been arrested, but did not specify the suspect’s nationality or give additional details.
Last week, Turkey’s interior minister said it had arrested another 147 people suspected of having links to the Islamic State.
Imprisoned, shot in the street, fallen from windows or poisoned with tea enriched with polonium-210. Vladimir Putin’s warring parties suffer an unfortunate fate.
The KGB spy-turned-president has been atop the Kremlin for two decades and has encountered a number of opponents and controversies.
Who are the other people who dared to denounce Putin or challenge the Kremlin, and where are they now?
In this series, Sky News looks at some of Putin’s main warring parties and their current situation.
Boris Nadejdin
Opposition figure Boris Nadezhdin has said he will run against Putin in the 2024 presidential election.
Despite doubts about whether the 60-year-old can pose a serious challenge to the outgoing leader, Nadezhdin said he had collected more than 200,000 signatures from across Russia.
He had surprised some analysts with his harsh complaint about what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, calling the war a “fatal mistake” and vowing to try to end it through negotiations.
On 8 February, he said he had been barred from running in the election and the Central Election Commission said it had found flaws in signatures his campaign had collected.
He vowed to appeal to Russia’s supreme court, adding: “Taking part in the presidential election in 2024 is the most important political decision of my life. I am not giving up on my intentions.”
Speaking to Sky News last year, Nadezhdin said he was not afraid to speak out “because I have a long life” and had faced death several times.
Read the full series about Putin’s opponents below.
Or come back here tomorrow, where we’ll go on your vertical date with a former hot dog vendor who led an army over Moscow.
By Siobhan Robbins, Europe correspondent
The German chancellor responded to Donald Trump’s comments about NATO, calling the “relativization” of the alliance’s mutual defense clause “dangerous” and beneficial to Russia.
Although Scholz did not mention the former US president’s call, his comments came after Scholz had failed to discuss the former US president’s call. Trump sparked outrage by suggesting that the U. S. might not protect its NATO allies from a conceivable Russian invasion if you don’t spend enough on defense.
“Any relativization of NATO’s assistance guarantee is irresponsible and dangerous,” he said. Scholz speaks to reporters after a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “This is only in Russia’s interest. Nobody plays with Europe’s security or industry. “
Invoking the motto of the Three Musketeers, he asserted that “NATO’s promise of cover applies without reservation: all for one, one for all. “
His Polish counterpart followed suit after a meeting with the French president the day before, saying there was no option for an EU-NATO-US partnership in the face of mounting security concerns.
Poland, France and Germany have also pledged to make Europe more powerful amid growing fears of a Davis comeback. Trump in the White House would possibly allow Russian aggression to spread.
Tusk traveled to Paris and then Berlin to seek ties with Europe’s two biggest powers as the war in Ukraine nears its third year.
“There is no explanation why we deserve to be so obviously militarily weaker than Russia and therefore expanding production and intensifying our cooperation are surely undeniable priorities,” he said, advocating for the European Union to become “a military power ” own right. .
What did Trump say?
Trump sparked fear after saying at a crusade rally that he would “encourage” Russia to invade NATO allies that fail to meet defense spending targets.
“You didn’t pay. You’re a criminal. Yes, let’s just say that happened. No, I wouldn’t do it to you. In fact, it would inspire them to do whatever they wanted,” he warned.
NATO members are ideally meant to dedicate 2% of their national income to defence.
While Poland has been at this point for a long time, Germany is targeting M. Trump while he is in office for having failed.
Following the invasion of Ukraine, Berlin has increased its defense spending and is expected to meet the target this year.
As we reported, the U. S. Senate passed a bill offering $61 billion in aid to Ukraine.
The bill will now go to the House of Representatives before it can pass.
Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelenskyy wrote on X: “American assistance brings just peace in Ukraine closer and restores global stability, resulting in increased security and prosperity for all Americans and all the free world.”
As Ukraine’s largest donor, U. S. aid is meant to enable Kyiv to push back against Russia’s invasion.
The Democratic-led U. S. Senate has passed a $95 million bill containing aid to Ukraine, as well as Israel and Taiwan.
He supported it by a vote of 70 to 29, and 22 Republicans joined the maximum number of Democrats to pass the bill.
However, the measure will now go to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where its chances of passage are slim.
Doubts are growing about the legislation’s fate in the House, where it must be approved before it can be signed into law.
Even before the Senate vote, eight hardline Republican opponents of Ukraine aid held an overnight marathon of speeches that dominated the chamber floor for more than six hours.
Joe Biden has been urging Congress to allow more aid to Ukraine and other US partners, but he has come up against tough Republican opposition – largely from those aligned with Donald Trump.
The bill has been criticized by Republican Mike Johnson, speaker of the House of Representatives, for its lack of provisions to curb immigration.
“In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters,” Mr Johnson said in a statement.
“America deserves more than the prestige quo of the Senate,” said Johnson, who in the past has warned that the House could simply break the law into separate bills.
Ukraine’s gross domestic product rose by 3. 5% in January from last year, the Economy Ministry announced.
Growth is expected to continue in the first quarter, driven by improved logistics for manufacturers in parts such as export routes and state spending on rebuilding critical infrastructure, the ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine’s economy was devastated by Russia’s invasion in 2022, as millions of people fled the country, cities and infrastructure were bombed, and logistics, supply chains, and exports were disrupted.
In 2022, GDP fell by about a third.
But Ukrainian businesses have begun to adapt to the effects of the two-year war.
The government estimated that GDP grew by about 5% in 2023 and the economy ministry expects the economy to grow by 4.6% this year.
The Kremlin said warnings from European countries about “Russian propaganda” were just a way to “punish media they don’t like. “
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said anything that opposed the dominant narrative now classified propaganda in the West.
He was asked about a meeting between the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland in which they warned of an increase in Russian propaganda in European countries in the run-up to European Parliament elections in June.
In a call to reporters, the Kremlin spokesman said: “It is now evident that any source, media outlet or internet curtain that does not meet the criteria, does not work in the mainstream of data and tries to cover up events from other angles. , are identified as propaganda tools.
“This surely goes against the ideals of a laid-back press and demonstrates, once back, the authorities’ willingness to punish media they don’t like. This happens a lot in Europe at the moment. “
Moscow intends to double the number of troops stationed along Russia’s borders with NATO’s Baltic states and Finland, Estonia’s foreign intelligence service has said.
Vladimir Putin’s government is in favor of a war with NATO in the next decade, warned Kaupo Rosin, director general of Estonia’s intelligence services.
Rosin said that Russia was ultimately “unwilling to take military action against NATO”; however, Moscow believes a confrontation is imaginable within the next 10 years, according to his office.
He is the latest Western official to warn of Russia’s lingering appetite to move beyond the invasion of Ukraine.
Rosin said the Russian military’s reforms would lead to a “substantial” increase in troops on NATO’s eastern borders.
He said: “The Russians are making plans to strengthen their military forces along the border of the Baltic states, but also along the border with Finland. We will probably see an increase in staffing, even a doubling. “
“We will see an increase in the number of armed worker vehicles, tanks and artillery systems in the coming years,” he also told reporters.
So far, the presence of Russian troops on the border with Finland, a new NATO member, has been minimal.
But the Estonian intelligence report says a new army corps would likely consist of “two or three sets of maneuvers with a dozen sets of fire and combat. “
Last week, Denmark’s defense minister warned of the option of a Russian attack within three to five years.
Troels Lund Poulsen claimed that “new information” had emerged that NATO countries were previously unaware of.
Mourners wept over the coffins of a circle of relatives of four people who were killed in a Russian drone strike last Friday.
A woman named Tetiana said her son’s circle of relatives included two adults and three children, all of whom were killed in the attack on Kharkiv.